  Swimming dejectedly back to their small bit of beach the chums took off their soaked clothes and hung them in the sun to dry. “Well, here we are!” observed Nicky ruefully. “Well, here we are!” mimicked Cliff. “Don’t you like it? I thought you were fond of mystery and adventure!” “Whether I am or not, I’m getting it!” Nicky admitted. “But this was more than I bargained for.” “Same here,” exclaimed Tom. “I see,” Cliff grinned at them. “You two are—sort of—arm-chair adventurers. You like to have the thrills without the hardships. Just look at us!” he declared. “We couldn’t be deeper in adventure if we tried to dig our way in! Right in the midst of treasure-land! Stranded and deserted on the edge of an awful swamp—isn’t the Big Cypress Swamp north of us? Surely it is! Without food! Drenched and helpless. What more could you ask?” “I see what you are aiming at,” Nicky grinned back. “We must take it as it comes and make the best of it.” “That’s it,” Cliff agreed. “You know we’re not so badly off. Mr. Neale will come rowing along in the dinghy and then we’ll all crowd in and be rescued—what a story we’ll have to tell our grandchildren.” They were compelled to laugh at his tone and his ludicrous words. It made them all feel better. Meanwhile, Mr. Neale had reached Nelse’s place and been greeted by Pomp’ who assured him that he was welcome to wait until Mars’ Nelse came back with his canoe—having gone “off yonder,” Pomp’ said with a vague wave of his hand toward the Sound. Waiting on the rude little dock, Mr. Neale caught sight of the Treasure Belle standing away for an opening into bigger water. It astonished him and rendered him helpless to act! He knew that he could not hope to overtake her with his dinghy, and Pomp’ assured him that there was no faster boat within reach. “I ’spect dat black man f’om Jamaica done got de skeer under his wool and run off wif de white chill’un,” he observed. “No—he’s gone alone,” Mr. Neale stated. “I left the boys on the shore by the inlet.” He leaped in to the dinghy and began to row down the shore line; it was no time to wait for Nelse. He must see whether the boys were where he had left them or if they had managed to return, by swimming, before Sam got the boat under headway. He was forced to conclude that they were either voluntarily going with Sam or that they were under some compulsion on the sloop. Certainly they were not on the shore! He beached the dinghy and sat in it, considering. Where were his charges? Why had they let Sam get away if they had reached the sloop? As a matter of fact, the chums were having an adventure they had not counted on. Hardly had they decided to wait for their chief when a thought had struck Nicky. “If we were detectives, now,” he mused, “we could find out what all this mystery is concealing.” “Well, we have nothing better to do,” Tom suggested. “Let’s try our hand at ‘detecting!’” “Good idea!” Cliff agreed. “First off, that boat, last night, didn’t come back into the Sound. And there’s signs enough that real people were here. Where did they go? Where did they take the boat? And what did they do with the chests?” “That’s easy!” Nicky declared. “They went up this little river, and they either put the chests back in their own boat or in another one, that had that funny light on it.” “But where did they go, then,” demanded Tom. “Up the inlet, I said,” Nicky retorted. “We can’t get through the mangroves and the tangle of brush, but a boat—or boats—could go up as far as that bend yonder.” “I wonder what’s beyond the bend,” reflected Tom. “Let’s see—while our clothes dry!” Nicky urged, slipping into the water. “No—wait!” called Cliff. “Look out for water snakes!” “Or—crocodiles!” added Tom. “I will,” laughed Nicky, turning and swimming slowly up the inlet. They watched him anxiously. He waved an arm reassuringly and in a hundred easy strokes was at the point where the inlet turned out of their sight. “Don’t go around there by yourself!” called Cliff. “It’s just the same, around the bend,” Nicky said as he trod water for an instant. Then he swam out of their sight. “Nicky!” called Tom anxiously. There was a moment of silence, then a faint answer came. The place seemed suddenly to be spooky and queer. Of a sudden there was a sharp, low cry, and then silence. Tom and Cliff looked at each other. “Nicky!” shrilled Tom. They strained their ears. There was no answer! With one accord, never pausing to think of personal danger, knowing that Nicky was not the sort to play a joke, that if he failed to answer their hail he must be in peril, they slipped into the water and used their utmost effort to reach the bend. Hardly had they left the tiny beach when a Seminole Indian, with an almost expressionless face, emerged from a clump of heavy bushes through which he had been calmly, stolidly observing them for a half hour. That was why, when Mr. Neale arrived ten minutes later, no clothes hung in the sun to furnish a clue to the presence of the boys. As the two chums reached the bend and could see around it they suspended their strokes and stared! Nicky was not in danger at all! But he was evidently too stupefied by what he was regarding to have heard their call; or, perhaps the dense growth had dulled the sound. At any rate, they paddled hastily forward until they could climb out beside their comrade. “Why didn’t you answer?” demanded Cliff, his anxiety shifting to a natural anger at the fright Nicky had given them. “Oh! Golly! I guess I was too surprised to hear you!” Nicky lifted an arm and waved it at the scene before them. On the shore a light canoe of cedar, hollowed out of the virgin wood as the Seminoles create their water craft, lay upturned. Beyond that there was a spot cleared in the heavy brush growth, and there were piled cases and crates, perhaps fifty of them! It did not require the stenciled black letters at the visible ends of certain cases to indicate the truth to the chums. An old ship’s lantern of the sort used at the starboard and port sides, with a screen of green glass over its front indicated where the previous night’s uncanny glow had come from. But the cases themselves told more. “Rum runners!” gasped Nicky. “We ought to have guessed,” Cliff said. “Nelse is one of them. That’s why he tried to scare us away. This is a nest of them. I suppose they can run up from the islands—especially Cuba—get their large boat hidden from the Government patrol on some dark night, in among the keys, and then ferry the cases over here in smaller boats.” “But what good does that do them?” Tom wondered. “How do they get the cases to market?” “I guess the Seminole Indians, or maybe half-breeds, work with them. It must be the Seminoles because they know the waterways in the Big Cypress Swamp and the Everglades, and I don’t think many white men do—they didn’t up to recently, anyhow, according to a book on exploration I read.” Nicky made the statement excitedly. “Even if we never find any treasure,” he added, “there must be a big reward for breaking up trade like this. It’s wicked. It’s against the law and the Constitution, and even if there wasn’t any reward we will have to try some way to get word to the Government boats.” There was a slight stir in the grass and scrub behind and to the left of them. When, with one accord, they turned, a Seminole Indian faced them. “Hello!” said Nicky, a little uneasily. The man made no immediate reply. Instead, he lifted an arm and beckoned, then pointed toward a narrow trail beyond the clearing. Nicky looked at Cliff, and both consulted Tom with their eyes. They all read a common intention; they would swing about and rush to the inlet and swim back to the shore. The Indian divined their purpose; with a snakelike movement he stepped to a point preventing the move. His hand touched something bright and sinister at his belt. “Se-lof-ka-chop-kaw!” he said, Seminole dialect for “My knife is long!” He partly unsheathed the weapon. Silently the chums took the trail, their captor following close. And two hundred yards away Mr. Neale sat by the shore, wondering! |
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